In the garment packaging industry, a great deal of value is placed on the processes involved in the folding of the garments. The proper fold and/or folding techniques can influence, without limitation, such things as: the bulk of the final package, affecting such as the number of items per box, box size and shelf space; folding speed, affecting such as production speed and production cost; and presentation, affecting customer appeal and the bottom line--sales. Long-sleeve, upper-body garments such as shirts, sweatshirts and jerseys are notorious for presenting difficulties in the areas, at least, of bulk, folding speed and presentation. This is due mostly to the awkward presence of the long sleeves which present added bulk when folded and which represent a problem for prior art automatic folding machines.
It is not uncommon in the industry to find automatic folding machines which quickly fold shortsleeve shirts with little or no human intervention beyond placing the short-sleeve shirt flat on a feed tray. However, the most common automated methods of folding long-sleeve shirts still require a human operator to hand-fold the sleeves behind the garment torso prior to placing the shirt on the folding tray. This is time consuming as well as inconsistent in sleeve placement; and furthermore, most hand-fold methods result in an unacceptably bulky accumulation of sleeve material.